Mother and Child Reunion
by Katzedecimal
Summary: Brainiac 5 has a problem parent. Set in the post-Zero Hour era.
1. It's Exposition, Charlie Brown!

Mother and Child Reunion: pt. 1, It's Exposition, Charlie Brown!

It was a dark and stormy night. A crash of thunder jolted him awake; fell asleep in the lab again. He looked around to see if anyone had seen him but he was alone. Or as near as he could tell, anyways -- he wouldn't be at all surprised to find himself showcased in yet another of "Lyle Norg's Funniest Home Holos." It was just as well, he thought - he'd been dreaming about his mother again.

Strange, it'd been some time since he'd thought about her - consciously, at least. Deep down, some part of him never stopped remembering her... nor what she'd done.

Everyone thought he was just full of wishful thinking, harbouring some sort of romantic ideal of motherhood, when he said that he'd missed her every day of his life. They didn't understand; how could they understand, when none of them remembered their own births? They couldn't understand that he did remember his. He remembered the pressure and the pain, the shock of cold and stinging light, the warm green arms that enfolded him, stroked him... then rejected him. As a newborn, he understood nothing. He only felt that he had done something wrong, had disappointed his mother somehow. Ever since, he'd yearned to make it up to her.

He was named Querl and became a ward of the Council of the Revolt. Despite his repeated questioning, the Council refused to tell him anything about his mother, known to him only as Brainiac 4. They wouldn't even tell him her name, though he knew her family name, like his, had to be Dox. His own investigations proved fruitless, despite his skill at hackery. Sometimes he wondered whether that was the real reason he had been kicked off of Colu, not for the radical experimentation that they'd claimed.

He'd never stopped looking. Even his experiments with time travel had all been motivated by the search for his mother. Then he'd finally found her, in the least expected of places: The Dark Circle. She was their leader and she'd orchestrated some of the most heinous crimes in their century. And then she'd tried to kill him.

The worst part was that it all made a twisted kind of sense. Brainiac 4 - he still didn't know her name - had apparently been born incapable of emotion. She had become obsessed with her lack and had engaged herself in experience after experience in the hope of emoting. When the birth of her son stirred nothing within her, she had left Colu entirely and continued her quest offworld. Finally, she found an experience that triggered her to feel: Murder. When the killing of unknowns proved to be a reliable stimulus, she had followed the logic and hunted down her son. It had worked: The protracted torture of her own son had stimulated a wide range of emotions in Brainiac 4. He would never forget the sight of her, weeping and laughing, naming off everything she was feeling, and thanking him for it even as he inched towards agonised death.

He still wondered what had happened to Dr. Regulus. After his mother was institutionalised, her presiding psychophysician had contacted him and requested various brain activity and mentation scans. Despite his depression and his mixed feelings, Querl had obliged -- no ordinary Coluan would do. The only way to get a comprehensive picture of Brainiac 4's mentation was to compare hers to a similar brain. Querl was the only other living member of the Dox lineage, the only other 12th Level intellegence in the universe; it had to be him.

It must have been working because Dr. Regulus kept making requests. The telepath's report had been bizarre, so Dr. Regulus had sent for another, independent telepath, and then a third. The doctor's communications had intrigued Querl enough that curiosity and pity had superceded his hatred: His mother's inability to emote rendered her incapable of empathy with others and drastically impaired her judgement, rendering her insane; her brain did not function normally, not even Dox-normally; and her childhood seemed to be missing. There were memories of education, but nothing more -- no sensations, no faces, no experiences, just... black.

And then, Dr. Regulus had disappeared. The communications had stopped and Querl's requests for an update had gone unanswered. Shortly after, he'd received a letter from the institute, requesting that he cease contact with Brainiac 4, citing that it was disrupting her progress. And, good boy that he was, he'd complied. He'd turned her from his life and gotten on with things and hadn't really thought about her until now.

It wouldn't hurt to check on her, at least? Querl knew that his request for an update would be turned down, but he wasn't called Brainiac 5 for nothing. He beat his own hacking record by almost a minute. Strange, there was no trace of Dr. Regulus's records. Where were all the scans he'd sent in? Where were the telepaths' reports? For that matter, where was Dr. Regulus? Apparently, he'd never even been employed at that facility. Querl frowned, puzzled, then turned to look at Brainiac 4's current status.

_'Released.' _Querl's heart started to pound and he felt all the blood drain from his face. _Released.' _He felt faint and nauseated as he stared at the word. _'Released.' _He checked the date and paled further, turning a sickly shade of yellow. "Who the sprock released her? **Why the sprock did you release her?!"** he shouted at the screen.

She'd be looking for him. He was the one being who could stimulate a range of complex emotions within her; she'd go looking for him again. _I've been sitting here, merrily conducting my experiments, and all this time she's looking for me!_

"Rokk, it's me.."

Rokk Krinn, a.k.a. Cosmic Boy, hiked his blankets up over his chest and glared blearily at the comm, "Do you know what time it is??"

"Yeah, time for me to leave. Rokk, I've got to go, if I stay here, I'll put the whole crew in danger."

"Brainy, what are you talking about?"

"My mother was released from the institution."

"WHAT?!" Rokk sat up, suddenly wide awake, "What the sprock? When?"

"Long enough that the only reason she hasn't found me here has been sheer luck."

"I thought you don't believe in luck?"

"I'm not in a position to disbelieve, at the moment. I don't know how often I'll be able to contact you without giving myself away. I'll have to keep moving."

"Ford Prefect time, huh? Alright, I'll see what I can do about getting you some back-up. Contact me when you get to your first destination; I'll get things moving on this end."

"Thanks, Rokk."

"Good luck, Brainy."


	2. Dox on the Run

Mother and Child Reunion pt 2, Dox On The Run 

"'It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents -- except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.'"

"Ow. Ow. Just... ow."

"Yup."

"That sentence should be taken out and shot."

"That's the original, the one that started the whole thing."

"...What 'whole thing' and before you answer that, do I really want to know?"

"No. But I'll tell you anyways so I don't have to suffer alone. It spawned a bad-writing contest. It's still going on in some colleges."

"Oh nass..."

"Listen, listen, you're gonna like this one. Remember how you were always complaining about Triad's cheesy romance novels?"

"And Vi's cheesy soap operas and Imra's and Spark's cheesy chick-flicks - yes. Unfortunately. You reminded me of that, why?"

"'They had but one last remaining night together, so they embraced each other as tightly as that two-flavor entwined string cheese that is orange and yellowish-white, the orange probably being a bland Cheddar and the white... Mozzarella, although it could possibly be Provolone or just plain American, as it really doesn't taste distinctly dissimilar from the orange, yet they would have you believe it does by coloring it differently.'"

"Oh my gods...!"

"Now_ that's_ cheese!"

"Brainiac, why are you reading this?"

Brainiac 5 smirked. He was sitting in a crowded spaceport, having decided on the 'safety in numbers' principle. Although the presence of people wouldn't stop his mother from acting, if she found him, the volume of pedestrian traffic might slow her down. "I was just taking a break. I've been cracking the Coluan databases, trying to find any information on my mother. I was starting to lose focus so I decided to refresh myself with some utterly moronic light entertainment. Then I was interrupted by a flying nun."

"This is 'light entertainment'? What are you, a masochist?" Sister Andromeda laughed.

"I keep hanging out with Lyle, don't I?" Querl grinned back, "Anyways. I assume you're the 'back-up' Cos sent?"

"You assume correctly. My brawn, your brain, the two together ought to be your best bet for outwitting her."

"Can't argue with that. You're even good company."

"You say that like it's a bad thing." They laughed, then Laurel got serious, "You've been looking for stuff about your mother for years; think you'll find anything now?"

"Did you ever know about Sharn Nux?"

Laurel frowned, "Hmmm... possibly.. Remind me."

"Anti-AI fanatic, tried to kill me once."

"That would explain why he doesn't stand out..."

"Har har. And it's 'she.' The significant point here being, she was the mate that the Council had lined up for me. Stop looking at me like that."

"No, no, it's the arranged marriage angle, honestly. I have a problem with those."

"We liked each other even less, and of course, after she tried to kill me, the whole deal was off. Like it was ever 'on' to begin with." Querl sneered then shook his head, "Anyways, when we first met, she was shocked. She said something about 'it wasn't humiliation enough that her family was in disgrace without marrying her to it as well.'"

Laurel tilted her head, "Hah? What's that supposed to mean?"

"Something I myself have wondered for years," Querl nodded, "But never really investigated. Even if I had, I doubt I would have recognised what I was finding." He steepled his fingers and thought for a moment, "No, I'll start with Doctor Regulus's reports. He had three different telepaths explore my mother. Independently and unanimously, they all found that my mother's childhood memories were missing. Only, they weren't."

"Huh?"

"There are memories of education, but nothing beyond that. No faces, no people, no sensations, nothing. No experiences at all - just blackness."

"It's just blank?"

"Not blank, but **black.** That point was distinguished."

"Okay. So what's the connection to Sharn Nux?"

"It seems the House of Nux had been involved with a faction that sought to increase Coluan intellect with the suppression of emotion. They felt that if the emotive irrationality were removed, pure logic would remain."

"That sounds like... what's that 20th Century program that Rond and Lyle were watching..."

"'Star Trek,' yes. Mr. Spock."

"Yeah, that's it."

"Actually, I believe that is exactly the state that this faction were striving for. I couldn't find any official records of the group or their experiments. What I did find were personal notes and communications, from several individuals." Querl leaned forward and propped his elbows on the tabletop, warming to his subject, "Self-discipline wasn't sufficient. These people appear to have believed that it could be done if the subject were removed from all emotion-inducing stimuli, such as in an isolation tank."

"That wouldn't work. That's a known recipe for driving someone insane. Not even a Coluan mind can stand that kind of treatment."

"I know. These people hypothesised that an infant raised in isolation would know no different and therefore be stable in the tank environment. Such an infant would grow into an adult of perfect rationality." Sister Andromeda's face was a picture of disgust. Querl nodded, "And if I'm understanding correctly, they actually tried it."

Laurel looked sick, then the penny dropped. "Oh my gods..! You mean, you think it was your mother?!"

"Their notes talk about the apparent success of 'the project,'" he mimed quotes, "Then later they talk about its failure. They talk about how the test subject had seemed so promising and were stymied as to how it could have gone so horribly wrong. Now, given what they were trying to do, and given what my mother's problems are... If she were raised in an isolation tank, her memories_ would_ be black."

"Oh gods...! Brainiac, that is sick!"

"Hey, it wasn't my idea!"

"Yeah, not even you are that heartless."

Querl's face turned to stone. "That's not funny, Laurel."

She was immediately contrite, "I'm sorry, that was over the line. I know how heartless you are. NOT VERY," she seized his hand as he started to storm off. "Grife, I'm just channeling you today, aren't I. I'm sorry, Brainiac."

He sat down again, mollified by the jab at his legendary ability to say the wrong thing even when he wasn't trying. "I suppose even you can have an off day," he grumped. He found it difficult to stay angry with Laurel for long. For one thing, she was the only one who'd complied, when he'd said not to call him "Brainy."

"There's one thing I don't get," she said, "I thought you said that the Brainiacs were under the control of the Council?"

"Pretty much," he said guardedly, given that the Council had kicked him off Colu and therefore technically out of their jurisdiction.

"So how could they do that kind of extreme experimentation on Brainiac 4 without the Council knowing about it? Unless.. Oh gods!"

"I like you, you answer your own stupid questions."

Laurel reached across the table and thumped him, "Nasshat! ...oh, get up off the floor, I know you're faking."

He slid back into his seat, brushing off his thighs, "Now we're even."

"Okay."

"To answer your stupid question further, yes, the possibility that such experiments could be hidden from the Council existed but was very slim, given the amount of meddling I mean involvement that the Council takes in the Dox lineage personal lives." Laurel grinned widely at that. "The possibility that the Council knew about and possibily even endorsed the project was disquieting but frankly, a heck of a lot more likely."

"And you found a connection."

"Okay, you just made up for the stupid question by anticipative reasoning. My faith is restored. Yes, I found a couple of connections. I couldn't get any names, but I did find enough evidence to convince me that the Council knew full well what was being done to my mother."

"That's just monstrous! That's a known recipe for driving someone insane, how could they think that she wouldn't grow into what she became?!"

"They must have thought that our 12th Level intellect could handle being deprived of emotive function. But I know from personal experience - we can't."

Laurel chewed her lower lip thoughtfully. "If she were raised in isolation, she wouldn't have developed any sense of empathy with others. She wouldn't be able to connect with their pain. Being deprived of emotions, she wouldn't have any pain to connect with anyways. It'd all be un-real to her."

"My mother did a lot of good during the course of her quest, but once she found a successful stimulus, of course she would seek repetition."

Laurel looked up and shook her head, "I don't think there's any possibility that she wouldn't have become what she is or done what she did."

"And if the Council was behind it, they share a lot of the responsibility for what she did," Querl nodded. He pushed his hands through his hair and sighed, "Something's rotten in the Council of the Revolt."

Laurel sighed too, then stood up, "Back in a few. Nature calls."

"And never leaves a message," he nodded. He stretched then went back to his reading. A few minutes later, his comm chirped. He scowled, "Cos, this is an open frequency!"

"Brainy! You bugged out just in time. She tore right through us, she's on your trail. You've got to get moving!"

"Oh grife, but why did you..." A flash of light distracted him and he broke off, staring.

"She's teleporting! She hacked into the computer somehow and went viral or something and sprockin' near destroyed Gear! She found our communications and cracked the encryptions. Brainy, _**she broke your encryptions!**_ It doesn't matter if this is an open channel, she's coming for you!"

"No, Cos," Querl said numbly, "She's here."

Rokk's voice faded into the wordless din. His mother vanished then reappeared right in front of him. Andromeda's scream and the sonic boom of her Mach-1 speed were drowned out by the sound of his heart pounding in his ears as Brainiac 4 reached for him with her glowing palm.

"Oh, spro----"


	3. False Hope

Mother and Child Reunion part 3: False Hope 

It might have been a dark and stormy night, or a bright and sunny day, or a dark and stormy day -- the room had no windows and he had no idea what time it was or what planet he was on.

He knew where he was: On his back, strapped to a lab bench, with a number of monitors that he couldn't quite see scattered around him.

"Ah, you are awake. That is excellent."

"Good morning, Mother," Querl said. He looked down at the straps across his shoulders, "Guess I'm gonna miss the school bus, huh?"

She looked at him. After a pause, she said, "Your statement makes no sense. There is no school bus here and you are long out of school."

"Just a joke..." Brainiac 4 didn't reply, instead leaning forward to set another tiny, jewel-like bud near her son's hairline. "What's with the EEG sensors?" he asked.

"I wish to ascertain why it is that you can emote but I cannot. This indicates there is a difference in our brains. I wish to understand why this difference is so. A child should be a copy of the mother; such a difference should not exist."

Querl nodded, interested despite his fear. "So, you're going to start by comparing encephalographic activity? You should compare cerebral activity at the same time. That way we can correlate the encephalographic activities to their originating areas of the brain."

"That was my intention. Why do you say 'we?'"

"Hey, I'm a scientist too!" he protested, "I'm your son! I've got just as vested an interest in figuring out why we're so different as you do!"

Brainiac 4 looked at him and he suppressed a shiver. Her face was what had frightened him the most, back when he had first found her. It still did, every time he saw her. Some would call her face 'expressionless', but that wasn't precisely the case: It was blank. Without emotion to trigger expression, her face had seen very little use over the course of her life. Every muscle was relaxed; there were none of the subtle tensions that defined even the most composed face. Though years younger, Querl's own face was showing the lines of use (mainly frown lines from his habitual frustrated scowl); Brainiac 4 had no lines at all.

She sat down beside his table and picked up a plug wire. Brushing her long hair back, she inserted the plug into a silver socket set behind her ear. Querl frowned; he hadn't seen that before. "What's that, Mother? What does that do?"

"Why do you ask that question?"

"Because I hadn't seen them before, the last time we met. What is it?"

"You had facial implants; they performed the same function, did they not?"

Querl felt his eye start to twitch. "Mother, I can't answer that question until I know what function _your _implants perform."

"They permit computer interface with my cerebral network."

Brainiac 5 gaped, "_**You're**_ the 'Living Computer?!'"

"That is correct."

"You were the Comptroller of the Septumvirate?"

"Yes."

He let out a low whistle, impressed: The Septumvirate empire had been unified by a single, massive computer system. They'd boasted that it was alive and called it the Living Computer. With their Comptroller's management, the hegemony of the Septumvirate had prospered for years. The Septumvirate worlds had finally fallen to the Khunds, but only after vigorous resistance. He shook his head, "No, my implants didn't do that. They generated my force-field and allowed use of a few other of my gizmos, but mainly they were personality inhibitors."

"You have removed them."

"Yes."

"No matter. A minor inconvenience."

"Er... to what?" No answer. He liked the sound of her silence even less. "...Can't I see the monitors? I'd turn them myself but I'm a bit tied up at the moment," he laughed. She stared at him. Brainiac 4 didn't understand humour at all, thus it could be used to keep her guessing. She never quite knew what he meant, so he could buy time with wisecracks. "You're not going to let me see?"

"If you insist," she said. Her voice was as blank as her face, completely monotone and level. She turned the monitors and he watched as she continued her set-up. He had to admire her integration: No clumsy tapping on screens or cumbersome speech recognition - she manipulated the programs at the speed of her thoughts. It was seamless and sophisticated. Despite her enhancements, the system strained to keep up. Not even Gear was this good. The Living Computer, Brainiac 4 - his mom! Despite his fear, he felt a surge of filial pride.

Soon, the displays showed the electroencephylographs and mentation maps of their respective brains. Querl watched, noticing the differences immediately and working out the correspondences.

"What's your name, Mother?" His voice was small and soft.

"Brainiac 4."

"No, I mean your real name. Your given name. Mine's Querl; what's yours?"

"Brainiac 4. I have no other name."

Querl blinked. "Surely your mother, my grandmother..."

"Was rendered brain-dead by my conception. When her body failed, my gestation was completed artificially."

"...grife..." Querl whispered, horrified, "...they didn't even give you a name..."

His emotion reflected on his mentation map and EEG. Brainiac 4 made some notations, taking screen captures and highlighting the relevent areas. She seemed satisfied with what she was seeing, on his end anyways.

Her own was entirely different and it made Querl feel sick. Her neural sockets, hidden behind each ear, drilled straight into her brain, crossing the visual centers. They crossed each other at the midbrain, passing through the corpus collosum and penetrating a few centimeters into the opposite hemisphere. He noted the brain centers they passed through, and the associated functions. He also noticed something else. "What's that?"

"What's what?"

"That. What it just did, right there, across the visual cortex."

After several moments' comparison, she shook her head, "No unusual activity is happening."

"Yes there is, right there! See, it just did it again!"

She shook her head again and he sighed, frustrated. It was so blatantly obvious! "How can you not see it?"

"There is nothing to see. There are no observable differences between our brains."

Querl gaped, "**What?!** Mother, there are a lot of differences! I can see them, there's a whole mentation structure that's completely missing from you! Five of your traces are flat-lines and there are whole areas of your brain that are non-functional!"

She scrutinized the screens and again, the neurons fired across her visual cortex. "There are no flat-lines. There are no dormant areas."

That was when Querl realised what was happening: She literally couldn't see it. Something was preventing her from seeing the activity. But why? So that she couldn't identify what was wrong with her?

"Do you remember your childhood, Mother?" Again that soft, boyish voice.

"I cannot correlate years to my memories. I had little sense of the passage of time. Time was measured by the progress of my education."

"Did you have a family?"

"No."

"Care-givers? Teachers? Who educated you?"

"No one. My education was fed through my cerebral interlink."

"Do you remember when you first saw another person? How old were you?"

"I had attained physical adulthood. For what purpose is this line of questioning?"

Querl swallowed nervously, then explained about the non-emotion faction and their proposal to rear a child in an isolated tank environment. "...and I believe that child to be you," he finished.

Brainiac 4 thought about it, her blank expression never changing. Querl glanced at her EEG and mentation maps and watched, fascinated. She didn't do this cogitation thing by halves! "That would make sense," she said at last, "I retain memories from early collegiate, likely young childhood. I would wave my arms to see if I could feel them. Occasionally my hands would encounter a solid substance. I would pound on it to see if it was real."

"You... couldn't feel your arms?"

"Not as I could feel my throat. I could feel my throat if I made it vibrate hard enough."

"...How so?" She screamed and the bottom dropped out of Querl's world. "...oh grife... Mother..."

"I would do that to ascertain if I was real. The result was consistant, so I ceased such experiments."

_They took a little baby and drilled holes in her head then put her into a sensory-deprivation tank. They left a little girl screaming and pounding on the tank wall, not sure if anything was real. They didn't let her out until she was an adult and then they wondered why she'd gone insane. They treated her worse than they'd treat a lab rat **and they didn't even give her a sprocking name!**_

Querl felt an abrupt surge of rage, at the scientists, at the Council, at himself for not trying to understand what was motivating her, for not digging deeper, for turning his back and abandoning her as she'd abandoned him. It was the primal rage, the rage that he could barely control, that made him want to strangle those scientists with his bare hands then slash himself to hamburger with whatever was handy...

"How fascinating. Your EEG shows you to be emoting, but it is originating from a completely different area of your brain."

Huh? Querl blinked and focussed on his mentation map: Sure enough, a new area had become quite active and it was independant of the normal emotive areas. He forced himself calm. As the rage subsided, so did the new activity. Well now, that was unexpected. He noted that the new area was quite close to the region governing reproductive function, and wondered if that had anything to do with it. Thinking about his ancestry, he suspected that it did.

"This has been productive. I now have a sufficient datamap of your emotive brain activity."

Sudden apprehension made his stomach attempt to do backflips. "Glad to be of service."

"I will now attempt to induce emotion in myself."

"Ah... er..." Yep, he was right. "How 'bout a hug? That always works for me. Or how about one of Apparition's stupid 'reality' shows? ... 'course, that always induces the desire to drive sharp sticks through my eyes, so maybe not."

Brainiac 4 shook her head. "Reality shows do not induce even annoyance."

"Suddenly I'm starting to envy you..."

That got something: She turned and stared at him. "You would not envy me," she said softly, looking at him as though she were really seeing him for the first time, "You do not wish to live like this."

He sensed an opening and tried for it. "Mother, please, let me up. I can help you, I'm sure of it."

"This is a ploy to escape."

"I'm not going to escape! I told you, I have just as vested an interest in correcting your condition. Please, Mother, let me help you."

"You will," she said.

The volts ripped through him, causing every muscle to contract, and he screamed from the agony. It may have lasted only a few minutes, but it felt like an eternity. Finally it ended and he tried to clear the noise from his head, blinking the tears out of his eyes.

She was giggling. It was a creepy, manic sound and one that he was all too familiar with. Not only from his previous encounters with Brainiac 4, but from himself -- he'd made the same disturbing laughter when his implants failed. He blinked, trying to clear the fog from his head, and stared at his mother's mentation map. "...Do that again," he said, not quite thinking about it. She was only too willing to oblige.

When his head cleared the second time, he stared at his mother's mentation map. The emotive lines of her EEG were active for the first time and Brainiac 4's face was expressive. She was laughing and weeping, whimpering a litany of the emotions she was feeling. Joy, sorrow, guilt, anger... Querl had always triggered not just one, but many emotions, a veritable banquet to the starving Brainiac 4. She petted his hair and kissed his forehead, crooning about what a good boy he was, such a good son. He shivered.

Her emotions were coming from the same area of her brain that had originated his rage. Neurons were firing across her compromised emotive regions, suppressing their activity, but that unknown region was free. No, not quite free, but just enough out of reach to be harder to control. They probably didn't know about it anyways; that area didn't exist in the pure Coluan brain. But the House of Dox wasn't pure. "Mother... I think I've figured it out. I know what's wrong now, and how to fix you."

"How?" She wiped her eyes and examined their mentation maps, "I see nothing indicative."

"I know. There's a neuron flash across your visual centers whenever you look at the maps. You're being prevented from seeing what's wrong with you."

She thought for a moment. "Your emotive brain permits you to see differences that I cannot perceive?"

"Yes, Mother. I can see what's happening to you."

"All the more reason to proceed then."

"Uh... proceed with what? ... _**oh sprock!"**_ A panel above him had slid back and revealed a small drill. Querl felt the blood drain from his face and extremities as he stared, suddenly realizing what she meant about his implants!

"It is a pity you no longer have your implants but it is a minor matter. I will give you cerebral sockets. That will permit overwrite."

**"What?!"**

"My attempts to cure myself have failed. The efforts of professional psychologists and telepaths were likewise futile. There is no other way: I will overwrite my mind with yours and thereby gain emotion through you."

The drill whirred to life. Querl stared at it, struggling to break his bonds. "Mother! Mother, please, don't do this! You don't have to do this, Mother!"

"You will not feel pain," she assured him. He felt the burning in his vein and realized, for the first time, that she had tapped him for an anesthetic.

"Mother, please, you don't have to do this!" he begged, tears spilling over. The numbness was growing and he fought it. "You don't have to do this, Mother, you don't have to erase yourself! I can help you, Mother, _please_ let me try! Trust me, Mother, I'm your son!" She hesitated, wavering. He fought back the encroaching blackness and the nausea, fought to stay conscious. "I want to help you, Mother," he pleaded, "I want to give you back everything they took from you!"

The drill stopped. She reached up and took the plugs from her sockets, then turned to him with a questioning look. Her hand moved to release him from the restraints. Then the wall blew in.

Brainiac 4 pulled herself up from the rubble of the opposite wall, staring wonderingly at the woman in the clothes of a Valorite pilgrim.

Sister Andromeda bunched her fists and snarled. "Get away from him, you bitch!"


	4. Obligatory Fight Scene

Mother and Child Reunion Part 4: Obligatory Fight Scene 

She was a dark and stormy Daxamite. Sister Andromeda stared at the wall she'd collapsed using Brainiac 4's body. She turned to help Querl but her attention was drawn back by the sound of giggling. Brainiac 4 was picking herself up out of the rubble, giggling and wiping away hair and blood. She looked up at Andromeda, smiling like the sun. "Betrayal! Rage! Indignation! Oh, this is WONDERFUL!" she said gleefully, and slammed her fist up into Sister Andromeda's jaw.

"You're kidding me!" Umbra said in shock as she and Violet entered. "She's crazy enough to pick a fight with a _Daxamite?"_

"Be careful! She's got new weapons and she's.. WHERE'D SHE GO?"

"Grife, when did she learn to teleport?" Gates said, materializing and taking a swing at Brainiac 4, as he had once before.

She vanished and reappeared in a flash of light behind him. "I must thank you," she told him, vanishing and appearing again and again, "Your method of combat was most effective. It was inspiring."

Gates tried to anticipate her, keenly aware that his gates nowhere near matched her speed. "Yeah, well, not glad I could help."

**BRACKT!** _screeeeeeeeee..._

"GATES!!" "Great, there goes our escape route."

"Grife, was that a neutrino beam?" Andromeda muttered. She launched herself at Brainiac 4, took a beam in the chest and slammed back into a wall. "...ow."

Violet put all of her power behind her fist, growing rapidly from mite size. Brainiac 4 spotted her coming and slapped her hand onto Vi's head, discharging her neutrino patch. Vi went down without a whimper.

"Hang in there, buddy," a voice whispered, "I'll have you out of here in a jiffy."

Barely conscious, Querl focussed on it, "...lYle?"

"Stay with me, buddy. what's she pumped you with? Looks like an anesthetic. Hang on, I've got an antidote..." Still invisible, Lyle discharged the syringe contents into Querl's arm, then resumed picking the restraint locks.

"..lYle... s'CkeTs.. dOn' l'T hEr uSe heR sOcKetS.."

"Just hang in there, buddy, just stay with me, the antidote'll start working soon." Lyle ducked a chunk of flying masonry and looked anxiously towards the fight. Andromeda and Brainiac 4 were in a speed race to see who could lay a fist on whom. The flashes were almost blinding; teleporting at the speed of her thoughts, Brainiac 4 could just about keep up with Andromeda's super-speed. Then Andromeda scored a lucky shot and sent 4 careening. She staggered to her feet, giggling.

Umbra knew that watery sound. She'd heard it before, out of Brainiac 5. His implants had failed, their personality suppressors crashed, and the whole of his 12th level intellect had burst forth all at once. Well, she knew how to handle that. She released her darkfield, obscuring Brainiac 4, and strode forward. "Fun's over, Mommy Dearest. Time for you to _urk..."_ Umbra stared down as her darkfield dissolved.

"Was that supposed to frighten me?" Brainiac 4's voice sounded a long way off. "Afraid of the dark? But I don't feel fear." Umbra couldn't look away from the green wrist buried just below her ribs. Who knew she could be so strong? Shouldn't it hurt more? "I don't feel anything," Brainiac 4 continued, "Really, what good did that do?" She withdrew her hand and shook the blood off of it. The darkness swallowed Umbra instead. "But you're right. Fun is over." She touched a switch and the room filled with red light.

"Oh grife," Lyle whispered, shocked, "She changed it to a red spectrum... and that takes out Andromeda."

Indeed, the Daxamite woman looked apprehensive and afraid, swallowing hard. Brainiac 4 approached her slowly, her neutrino patch glowing on her palm and whining faintly on the cusp of hearing. "Fury... joy... satisfaction... grief... victory," she recited, giggling and crying, her eyes lit with an unholy glow, "I feel so **much** when my son is near. I knew I could count on him." She smiled through her tears and raised her palm.

Andromeda threw a fast uppercut and Brainiac 4 hit the ceiling back first then crashed to the floor. "..What?"

"Or is it red light means 'stop'?" Andromeda's fists rained down, not giving her time to recover, "I always get those two mixed up." Her fists hit concrete.

"You are not Daxamite?"

"Sure am!" Andromeda spun around and launched for the teleport flash, feeling her fist connect to flesh then nothing.

"But Daxamites lose power under a red star spectrum."

"Sure do!" Another strike, then hit the wall, "But I have your son to thank for that particular work-around. Actually, I just adapted his force-field idea for my own spectral needs, but I still give him the credit. Oh and by the way," she added as she attacked another flash, "The lead trick doesn't work either. Your son saw to that, too. You should be proud of him, really."

Brainiac 4 materialized near her computer. She reached down and picked up an input cable, "I need information..."

"Laurel, **STOP HER!"** Andromeda's hand shot out, breaking the sound barrier, and seized Brainiac 4's wrist. A moment later she had her in a firm hold, unable to move. Querl wove unsteadily on his legs, shaking off the effects of the drugs. "It's your sockets," he said, "It's your implants. They're what's cancelling out your emotions."

Brainiac 4 stared as her son staggered across the floor, subtly aided by the still-Invisible Kid. "What do you mean?"

"The way your sockets are placed, they pass right through the emotive centers of your brain. They were placed there deliberately, to keep you from developing emotions. They cross your visual centers and keep you from seeing them. Literally, Mother, they were activating every time you looked at your scans and they were keeping you from seeing what was wrong with you. And every time you use them, they suppress you even more, Mother. You're stealing from yourself, every time you use them." He took a deep breath, "Mother, if you want to emote normally, then we have to remove your sockets."

"But then why can she feel when she gets violent?" Andromeda asked, puzzled.

Querl hesitated before answering, praying this bit of news wouldn't kick Laurel's xenophobia into gear again. "Because those emotions are coming from a different area of her brain, the same with some of my more... primal emotions. It's a long story, but Mother's father, Lyrl Dox, was only half Coluan. The other half was... something else. It's left its mark on the Dox physiology." He blushed, "Anyways, that area of her brain is just out of reach of her implants, so the responses generated there can't be directly suppressed."

"But... without my sockets..."

"Mother, you know I used to have implants, myself. They were personality inhibitors. They allowed an artificial control of my emotions but when they failed... After they failed, I found they were shutting my emotions down. Which was great! I could think really clearly, no distractions, no clouding my reason." Querl reached down to clasp his mother's trapped hands and looked earnestly into her eyes, "But I got rid of them, Mother. I got rid of them.. because they were making me too much like you." He reached up and wiped the tears from her cheeks.

"Yes," she said in a strange voice, and vanished. Querl spun around in time to see her materialize beside the drill. She touched the switch and it screeched to life. "...they must come out."

"Mother, **NO!!"** Querl tried to launch his forcefield but his head was still muzzy and he couldn't concentrate fast enough. The drill found its target. Brainiac 4 screamed once and collapsed, blood pooling around her head. **_"MOTHER!"_**

"Oh nass..." Lyle breathed.

"You take care of Brainiac; I'll patch up Umbra," Andromeda told him. Lyle nodded and went to kneel beside Querl.

"That was an astonishingly stupid thing to do," he spat, examining the ruined socket partially emerged from his mother's head. Lyle felt his stomach do a slow roll and dip to the left. Querl looked at him, tears streaking his pale face, "We have to get her to my lab immediately. Will you help me with her?"

"Of course. Get her stable; I'll help Sister Andromeda with Umbra and Vi."

"Vi's just conked out. Gates is coming around. Once we get Umbra patched up, we can head back to Legion World," Andromeda reported.

"Good," Lyle sighed. He looked around at Brainiac 4's destroyed lab, then looked at Querl and sighed, "Well, at least we know you really do come by it honestly."


	5. A Dox By Any Other Name

Mother and Child Reunion Part 5: A Dox By Any Other Name 

It was a dark and stormy night. A crash of thunder jolted him awake; fell asleep in the lab again. He looked around to see if anyone had seen him but he was alone. Querl then checked the EEG monitors. It was habit, by now.

It had taken days of work to separate the sockets and their associated cerebral network interface from Brainiac 4's brain tissue. The damage was severe but they'd done their best. It was well known that Coluans were among the lucky few species whose brain cells reproduced, allowing their brains to truly heal. Nevertheless, the outlook was bleak. Only her brainstem showed any activity - only that necessary to run her heart, lungs, and other basic functions. All higher cerebral function was flatlined.

The encouragement to let her go had started almost immediately; time had only made it worse. Why show such dedication to a woman who'd tried to kill him? She was effectively brain-dead; why waste resources on a woman who would never wake up? He should pull the plug on her, it was a better death than she deserved (thank you, Umbra, not.) Three months on, the talk had gotten stronger. After nine months, some were threatening to have his psyche evaluated. Querl listened to every discouraging word and thanked his collegues for their concerns. And he watched. And he waited.

He cared for her himself, taking on her medical care but also the menial duties of bathing her, changing her IVs and setting the electrical pulse machines that would contract her muscles and prevent them atrophying completely. He checked her EEG scans as often as others checked their chronometers. As the months stretched into a year, they showed no change.

Until now. Until two hours ago, a few minutes after midnight, when each trace had fired into furious activity, one after the other, like a twenty-one gun salute. Her emotional traces were going off the scale. Querl stared in shock, then got to his feet and raced towards the medlabs. He opened the door to Brainiac 4's room and got another shock. "...Mother?"

She was sitting on the edge of her bed, silhouetted against the stormlight, and sobbing quietly into her hands. "Mother?" She didn't respond but she did react, flinching and turning away from him, sobbing harder. He hadn't expected her to be conscious, not so soon! She'd only just resumed function! He waffled, wondering what to do. Colu wasn't a society that initiated or accepted contact lightly, and his mother had been isolated besides. What should he do? What did he want to do? - _That _he could answer. He sat down on the bed and put his arms around her, resisting her feeble attempts to pull away, "Mother, it's me, it's Querl. Your son. I'm here, Mother."

She tried to speak but was choked off by heavy sobs. Querl wondered what to expect. Did she comprehend what he was saying? If so, how much? Not even Coluans came out of coma this suddenly, much less this completely. Near as he could tell, her brain had waited until it was mostly healed, then - to borrow a computer metaphor - had booted her up all at once! He rocked her gently, rubbing her back and feeling the ridge of blonde down that ran along her spine, beneath her shirt. He didn't have such a ridge but his great-grandmother had. He himself had recovered from severe injury with surprising speed and completeness; he wondered what other traits their alien ancestress had given to the Brainiacs. She swallowed and tried again, "S-shame... guilt... h-horror..."

"You did terrible things, Mother," he said softly, "But you were driven to them out of desperation, because of what was done to you. But that's over now, Mother. Your sockets are out and your mind is healed. You're free."

"..where?"

"We're in the medlab, Mother."

"..w-why? Why here? Not..."

Querl's face cleared as he understood, "Not another institute? No, I will not permit that, not after what happened." He stroked her hair and explained, "You were under the care of a Doctor Regulus, were you not? He kept in regular contact with me and requested my assistance many times. He had three different telepaths delve you. He then disappeared and I received a letter from the institute requesting that I cease contact regarding you. I was informed that such communications were impeding your progress. I obeyed. I should have known better; I regret not investigating further. The three telepaths who delved you are no longer alive. All met with various accidents. Of Doctor Regulus I can find no trace." He was starting to shake with anger and held her close to quell it. "I now believe that the telepaths were assassinated, possibly Doctor Regulus as well. I believe that they were close to uncovering what the Council had done to you. Furthermore, I believe that I was deliberately misled, so that I would not investigate further. I believe the Council is behind this. That they would manipulate me in this way is infuriating." He hugged her tight and said fiercely, "I will not abandon you again, Mother."

"How can you call me that, after what I... I.. I tried to..." she broke into hysterical sobbing and tried to pull away, burying her face in her hands.

But Querl wouldn't let go. "You abandoned me at birth, yes. You tried to torture me to death, yes."

"..then...h-how can..."

Querl shook his head, "You committed terrible crimes, motivated by desperation because of what was done to you. But under the same motivation, you also did a lot of good. The Septumvirate was prosperous under you. The people you served as a hero loved you. The charities you sponsored as Brainia Starr commended your generosity. Your potential for good is at least as high as your capacity for evil. I had to know what kind of person you would be, now that you are unimpeded. I would like to add that the Council was perfectly aware that your neural network impeded your emotions. The fact that they deliberately made you what you became makes me want to poke them all with very sharp sticks."

Brainiac 4's weeping had slowed down as she listened, but now she gave him a Look. He smiled briefly and continued, "Not that they intended that you should take the actions that you did, but they had to have known that crippling you emotionally would cause serious psychological issues. However, the remorse that you are feeling now proves beyond doubt that you are inoti what the Council made you to be. Left to develop normally, I would put the probability as high that you would NOT have taken the actions that you did. You would not have abandoned me at birth, you would not have become the leader of the Dark Circle and you would not have tried to kill me in the most painful and protracted way imaginable. Conclusion -" he took her chin and tilted her face, gazing intently into streaming eyes, the same shape and colour as his own, _"You are not evil."_

That knocked her back into hysterical sobs again. Querl drew her against his shoulder and rocked her like a child. "Let it out, Mother," he whispered, only now aware that his own face was wet, "No one is here, there's just the two of us. No one else can see you. I won't leave you alone." He rested his cheek on the top of her head, a contact as intimate as a kiss, on Colu.

Brainiac 4 sobbed as hard as her body could manage, rising until she was nearly screaming. Memories rushed over her in an intense flood, but of all the atrocities she'd committed, the ones that pained her most were the memories of trying to kill her own son. Eventually her sobs stopped and she settled into a soul-wrenching keening. Throughout it all, Querl held her, steady as an anchor.

Finally, he felt her arm slip tentatively around his waist. "...sorrow...s-shame... apology..."

"Sorrow, valid. Shame, valid. Apology..." his voice cracked, "Wholly accepted." She sagged in his arms. He felt her other arm slide around him, and Brainiac 4 embraced her son for the first time.

"...my head hurts..."

"Unsurprising," Querl had a tension headache of his own, blossoming behind his eyes, "Do you wish an analgesic?"

"Yes. ...please."

Querl smiled, noting the afterthought addition - of course she would be unaccustomed to etiquette. He kissed the top of her head and got up to get two glasses of zyxra nectar from the replicator. She took one and sipped, belatedly remembering to say 'thank you.' He smiled, and this time kissed her cheek. "I have learned something else, Mother," he said presently, "The Council were divided on the experiment that centered on you. Some Councillors were quite fiercely opposed and tried to halt the experiment. I located the notes of one of them, now deceased. It appears she was quite actively trying to rescue you... and she had given you a name."

Brainiac 4 looked up, surprised, "She did? I have a name?"

"It was never officially recorded. Indeed, I don't believe Councillor Chen ever shared it with anyone. It appeared she wished to adopt you and had named you in her heart, so to speak. However, it is the only name I have been able to find. Councillor Chen would have named you 'Xoanon.' Xoanon Dox." Querl watched his mother carefully as her lips framed the name, trying it on for size. "Does the name displease? If it displeases, we can certainly..."

"No, the name does not displease," she said, tearing up again, "It could be 'Fred' and it would not displease. The name is suitable." She turned and hugged him tightly, the tears spilling over.


	6. Only Emotion Away

Mother and Child Reunion pt 6: Only Emotion Away 

It was a dark and stormy fight. Sister Andromeda was in the lounge outside the medlab, listening to the argument in the distant common room with her enhanced hearing. It had been going on all day.

"..can someone who claims to have 12th level intelligence be so sprocking stupid?!" That was Umbra. "It's clearly a trap and he's falling right into it! She's setting him up and he's so sprocking Oedipal, he's playing right into her hands!"

"He says she woke up different..."

"Oh please, Vi, as if. Luonovars don't change their dapples. He should have just let her sprockin' die, it was a better death than she deserved."

"Grife, Umbra..."

"Umbra's right," that was Gates, "She is a proven danger and he is not behaving normally. He hasn't even insulted her." Laurel had to smirk at that one.

"I don't buy that she's suddenly all better." "Miracles do happen..." "Oh sprock that, Orange, people do NOT go from practically braindead to perfectly recovered just like that!" "Purple, Orange, you're forgetting: She's Coluan. Their brains actually heal. Now I agree that it's strange but..." Oy, listening to Triad's three-in-one opinion was enough to give a person a headache. Laurel shook her head.

"Enough to make you sick, isn't it," said a voice nearby.

She looked around but nobody was there. "Hi Lyle." He faded into view. "News gets around fast."

"Yeah. The argument started pretty much as soon as we heard. Most people agree with Umbra."

"You?"

Lyle's expression was carefully guarded, "I'm Brainy's friend."

"Translation, jury's out pending further details."

"Yes. Rond feels the same way."

"Good." Laurel folded her arms and sighed, "I find it interesting how many people want Brainiac 4's head on a platter, but they seem perfectly willing to let the people who created her get away scot-free. Nobody's so much as considered the role of the Coluan Council in this. Except for Brainiac 5, of course."

"Yeah, I've noticed that too. Not even Gates, and that surprises me, given his whole antidisestablishmentism thing. Me," Lyle shook his head, "I saw what she did to herself. She shredded her temporal lobe with that stunt. And she's a _Brainiac."_ He shivered, obviously affected by what he'd seen, then shook it off, "So? Any idea what's been happening?"

"Only that she woke up coherant," she nodded towards the lounge's EEG monitor. During Brainiac 4's long convalescence, Querl had put monitors in every room he was likely to be in, giving rise to jokes about having one in his bathroom. "She's definitely emoting now."

"What about her sudden recovery? I mean, just yesterday she was still a vegetable. Could that be a trick? Could she have suppressed herself somehow?"

"I doubt it. Coluans are one of the lucky species whose brain tissue actually regenerates and can heal itself. Grife, Lyle, we've seen Brainiac's brain bounce back from some pretty extreme situations..."

"Nice alliteration there."

"Thank you. Anyhow, recovering from that kind of brain injury _isn't_ outside the range of Coluan normal, and they're not Coluan normal."

"We've always said Brainy wasn't normal," Lyle giggled. When Laurel didn't reply, he coughed, "Er, sorry."

She shook her head. "In all honesty, I think the best thing we can do right now is to keep the Legion away from them."

"Everyone? Including...?"

"Including you and Rond, yes, I'm sorry. If Brainiac 5 wants to talk to you, that's alright, but I'd like you to stay away from Brainiac 4 until we know how stable she is. If she's emoting fully now, she'll have no coping strategies in place and will likely feel overwhelmed easily. She'll be in a very fragile state for a little while."

"And you don't want us lunatics sprocking it up," Lyle grinned, "Alright, I'll trust you.. and Brainy. But what are we going to tell the feds?"

"What's to tell? She didn't escape, she was released. She came directly after Brainiac 5 and he's_ not_ going to pursue charges."

"Massive property damage..."

"She's _Brainiac!_ It was a laboratory explosion..." The absurdity of this made both of them break up laughing._ "If_ the feds come asking questions, we'll deal with it then. We'll sic Tenzil on them if we have to."

"Good enough, then," Lyle nodded, "Well, if you see Brainy, tell him Rond and I got his back."

"I will. He'll appreciate that. I haven't seen him since this morning. I think he's been asleep all day. He was up all night with her."

"As he should be. 'Kay, well.. I gotta go, it's my turn to cook. Later, Sis."

"Later, Lyle." Sister Andromeda tuned out the on-going argument and went back to her reading. A soft sound attracted her attention and she looked up to see Brainiac 4 shuffling slowly, supporting herself against the wall. "Oh my, what a difference!" Laurel exclaimed. Brainiac 4 gave her a quizzical look. Laurel got up to help her, "Come sit down. I'll help you across the floor. You're doing very well, I can see. Would you like some tea?"

"Yes... please." Still getting the hang of that 'manners' thing. "You are... familiar?"

Laurel brought the tea cups and sat down at the side of the table, rather than opposite. "We fought briefly," she replied, as though it had been sparring, "I'm Sister Andromeda, I'm an old friend of Brainiac's... Five, I mean.. your son.. oh you know who I mean."

"Yes. You noticed a difference; is it very apparent?"

"Yes! Your face has expression - subtle tensions, small movements. There's definition now. Your face was completely relaxed and blank; now you look composed."

"How interesting," said Brainiac 4. She sipped her tea, reflecting. "You said we fought? Yes, I remember now. I apologise for that."

Laurel covered her surprise. _Maybe Querl **is** right,_ she thought. "I accept your apology and forgive you," she said formally, then grinned, "Besides, you were quite a challenge. I don't ever want to have to fight a Brainiac again!"

"I hope it will not become necessary," Brainiac 4 agreed, looking into her teacup.

Laurel thought she looked slightly apprehensive. She sipped her tea, composing her thoughts before speaking. "I'd like to make myself available to you as a sympathetic ear. My oaths of confidentiality mean you can speak freely to me, about anything, without fear."

Brainiac 4 seemed relieved. "Thank you. I may do so. My son and I are talking, but there is much that I feel uncomfortable with."

"I thought that'd be the case, hence the offer," Laurel nodded.

"Thank you. You are a nun of what order?"

"The Valorite Sisters of the Eternal Cosmos," Laurel replied.

"Ah. The 'soul shapers', I believe."

Laurel grinned, "Yup, that's our nickname. Comes from the techniques we use to effect change in ourselves. Purification and the like."

Brainiac 4 frowned slightly, "It has been said that I do not have a soul. There is no imperical evidence for souls, in any case, but I do not believe that that was what was meant."

"Probably not," Laurel agreed, "I'm agnostic about it, myself. I didn't join for the religion, I joined for the soul-shaping techniques. They do work and they've helped me to deal with my guilt."

"Your guilt?"

"I was raised White Triangle Daxamite."

"White Triangle... oh yes. The Trom disaster."

Laurel nodded sadly, "Yes, those were my people. I wasn't directly involved but I aided and abetted and was technically an accomplice."

"I see," Brainiac 4 said softly, "When you said sympathetic, you meant that."

Laurel watched her haunted eyes carefully. "Yes. I've been working on my upbringing, too. It's a long, slow battle but I'm winning."

"I remember some Daxamites from the Dark Circle. You are not like them at all. I would not have guessed that you were raised to such extremist views as the White Triangle holds. I would agree that you are winning." Brainiac 4 sipped her tea and Laurel noticed that her jaw was tight and trembling somewhat. "I do not wish to return to what I had been," she announced, "Will your Order's techniques work on a soulless athiest?"

Sister Andromeda looked into the troubled emerald eyes and realized, _She's afraid of backsliding. She's afraid she's going to shut down and revert. She's overwhelmed and she's afraid she won't be able to handle it. She was desperate enough to rip her own sockets out and now she's desperate enough to try spiritual techniques she doesn't believe in._ Gently she laid her hand over Brainiac 4's, smiled and said, "There's only one way to find out."

"A short walk, for exercise" the note said. The shorthand for 'Brainiac 4' had been scribbled out, and 'Mother' written instead. Querl traced his fingertip over the word, noting that the timestamp was more than an hour ago. Well, she couldn't have gotten far -- literally, as she was too weak from her long coma. He pulled his boots on and stepped out into the hall. Hearing voices, he followed them to the lounge. Sister Andromeda spotted him and waved him over.

"Hello, Laurel. Hello, Mother," he kissed her cheek then sat down at the table with them, "Did you sleep well?"

"Reasonably so. It was different, though I cannot name quite how," she replied.

Laurel grinned, "I was telling Xoanon how you found her name." _Awww, look at his eyes sparkle._

"That was quite fortuitous," said the sparkle-eyed one, "I stumbled across that in Councillor Chen's diary, quite by accident."

"He had to do _something_," Laurel grinned, "We can't keep calling you 'Brainiac', then there'd be two of you screaming 'What now?!'"

Brainiac 5 rolled his eyes at her. "With two of us, we'll stand a better chance of actually getting some work done." He turned to his mother and smirked, "That is, if you can stand having your sarcastic and arrogant son around as lab assistant."

"That would be a potentially catastrophic paradox," she replied.

Querl blinked. He looked at Andromeda and blinked again. Then he groaned theatrically. Brainiac 4 had been incapable of understanding humour and now she was cracking very bad puns! He pulled his hands away from his face and mock-glared at Andromeda, "Just what have you been teaching her?"

"_Me?!?_ What makes you think _I _had anything to do with it?!" Andromeda laughed.

"She just woke up and it certainly wasn't me, so it must have been... no, wait, it was Lyle, wasn't it?! I'll fix him!"

Laurel laughed and placed a restraining hand on his wrist, "No you won't. Xoanon came up with that herself, nobody fed her any subliminal double-entendres."

Querl crossed his arms over his chest and hmmphed with an exaggerated pout. "Well alright... but I'll fix Lyle anyways, it's been a while since he's been fixed."

"Well, be careful. The last time you fixed him, he got you back with the 'planetary chance machine.'"

"Oh _please_ don't remind me of that."

Brainiac 4 flexed an eyebrow inquisitively, "'Planetary chance machine?'"

Querl scowled as Laurel explained, "Lyle Norg is Invisible Kid, Brainiac 5's best friend and worst rival. They're constantly trying to one-up each other, always threatening to beat each other up and steal each other's lunch ideas. They're actually on fairly even footing, because although Brainiac is much smarter, Invisible Kid is better at thinking at right angles to reality. So one day Brainiac here announces that he's come up with a way to make a computer generate** truly** random numbers. He gets all set up for his demonstration, hypes it up and everything, then unveils it and realizes he's been had."

"Do you **have** to tell this story? In front of my **mother?"** Querl snarled.

Laurel was laughing now, "Lyle had substituted this little gizmo that had billiard balls painted like planets stuck on sticks and mounted onto a platform that was rotating at a fairly high speed. Brainiac had just said 'What the fresh hell is this?!' when one of the billiard balls flew off and smacked him right in the forehead!"

"That is certainly a truly random occurance," Brainiac 4 observed. She could picture the scene all too clearly and giggled.

Querl noticed immediately. He rolled his eyes and shook his head with exaggerated exasperation, "Yes, well, Lyle would do well to remember what I did to avenge that heinous act," he said.

"Oh grife yes! He sprocked with Lyle's costume. Lyle's got it configured to restore when he becomes visible again. So a few days later, he fades into view and his costume is all pink with this big _Hello Kitty_ head in the middle of his chest."

"People called him 'Hello Kiddy' for weeks," Querl smirked. He pulled out a holosnap, eliciting another titter from Brainiac 4. For this, he'd endure any number of embarrassing stories. "You look like you're tiring, Mother," he observed.

She nodded, "Yes. After spending a year asleep, one would think I'd had enough."

Querl slid his arm around her and helped her up. "You're still mending. I'll walk you back and you can sleep some more."

Brainiac 4 leaned against him, then turned to look at Laurel, "Thank you, Sister Andromeda."

"Not a problem," she smiled, "We'll talk more later."

"Yes." She allowed her son to guide her back down the hall. She felt him stop and his arm tightened around her, and looked up.

"Umbra."

"Brainy, we need to talk."

"Tasmia, don't you dare!" Andromeda hissed.

"I am well aware of what you wish to say to me, Umbra," Querl's voice was tightly controlled, "And if you wish me to continue being your ally, you'll leave it unsaid."

"Brainy, you're being a fool! This is all..."

"Your wound is healed?"

"Huh?" Umbra shot a hostile glare at Brainiac 4, who was gazing at Umbra's abdomen. "What? Yes!"

Brainiac 4 nodded decisively, "Good. I apologise for my mistreatment of you."

"...wha?"

"Umbra. My mother is tiring and I am taking her back to her room. You and I will discuss this _very_ thoroughly, _much_ later. **Now go away."**

"Uh..." Umbra found herself caught around the shoulders by Sister Andromeda and escorted very firmly out. "Did she just apologise??"

"Yes."

"For punching a hole in me?? Does she think I can just forgive that, just like that?!"

"No, she does not. No, Brainiac does not expect you to, either. I've heard your concerns and I share them and believe me, I'm watching both of them very closely. But I think Brainiac is right about her."

"What makes you so sure?"

"Her sole reason for doing what she did was that it was the only way to feel emotion, any emotion. Now that she's emoting normally, she has no reason to continue her previous activities."

"Oh really. Unless maybe she liked it. If it made her feel good then, who knows how great it could make her feel now!"

Laurel sighed. Not even Brainiac 5 had understood the complexity of Brainiac 4's situation, at first; Umbra certainly wouldn't. "I have a standing order to kill her if she fails to hold onto her emotions and reverts."

Umbra gaped, "Brainy told you to kill his mother?!"

"No."

"Then who did?!"

"Xoanon Dox."

It wasn't a dark and stormy night. Nevertheless, something had startled him awake. Fell asleep in the lab **again!** - Grife, this was becoming such a habit, he might as well move his bed. He wondered what had woken him but all was quiet. No, not quite all - he turned at the sound of running feet.

"Brainy! Brainy!!"

"Umbra, what did I tell you about..."

"It's your mother! Come quickly, she's gone all weird!"

He was running before she finished, racing into the medlab, pausing only to check the still-running EEG monitors. He frowned at what he saw, then entered his mother's moonlit room.

She was sitting up in bed and trembling. Her hands fisted in the sheets and she pounded the mattress jerkily. Her eyes were open but unseeing, and her breath came in little mewling gasps and choked sobs. She screamed and Querl realized it had been her scream that had woken him. He sat on the bed facing her and took hold of her wrists. The restraint seemed to panic her and she thrashed; he drew her close and she beat her fists against his chest and screamed again.

"What the sprock is wrong with her?" Umbra whispered.

Querl looked again at his mother's EEG, noting the slow-wave sleep and emotional activity traces. "She's dreaming about her childhood," he answered, "She told me, she used to pound on the walls of the isolation tank to see if it was real. She screamed to make her throat vibrate, because she didn't know if _she_ was real."

"Oh grife..."

"I believe this is what is called a 'night terror.' I should be able to handle this," he told her, "Thank you, Umbra."

Umbra watched the shadowed fists pounding his chest. "Right... well... if you need help or anything, don't hesitate to call me..."

When she was gone, Querl turned back to his mother and tried to remember what he knew about night terrors. He shook her gently, "Mother? Mother!" No, if she was reliving her childhood... "Brainiac 4! Brainiac 4, attend! Brainiac 4, focus!" Her fists stopped flailing and she sagged, still making the little gasps and mewls. "You are real," he told her softly, "Brainiac 4, listen to me: You are real. You are not alone. I am real and I'm here with you. You are not alone, Brainiac 4."

"...whrr?" she stirred and clutched at his collar, sounding disoriented and confused, "..yl'n? wha' y' d'ng h'r...?"

"You were having a nightmare, Mother."

"..b't i d'n dr'm..." she sagged against him and nuzzled under his chin. Her breathing slowed and smoothed and in moments she was asleep again, if she had even woken up. Querl rocked her for a little while longer, then laid her down and kicked off his boots. He stretched out beside her, softly stroking her hair and humming something that might have been a lullaby. Before long, he too slept.

Morning found Brainiac 4 with her eyes closed but awake. It had puzzled her, waking to find her son spooned against her back, one arm underneath her neck and the other looped around her, encircling her. He was sound asleep. She hadn't moved, not wanting to wake him... and not wanting to end the feelings it stirred in her. She was feeling something deep and complex, something she had longed for. Something nothing had made her feel, not even her activities with the Dark Circle. Something she'd hoped to feel when he was born.

Querl cracked one eye open. Fell asleep in the la... no, not in the lab; then he remembered. _Must've fallen asleep after putting Mother back to bed. Awkward, but only slightly so. Hm, shallower respiration and furtive shifting, she is awake_. "Good morning, Mother."

"Good morning, Son. Surprise. Gladness." Coluese was such a basic, no-frills language. Like its speakers, it hated excess verbiage. "Curiosity as to presence in bed."

"Miscalculation on my part, unintentional intrusion," Querl said wryly, "Forgiven?"

"Presence not unwelcome; nothing to forgive."

Her voice sounded odd, he thought. "Do you remember me waking you last night?"

"No?"

"I thought you might not. It appeared you were having a night terror." He paused before continuing, "You were screaming. I believe you were dreaming about your childhood. I had difficulty waking you, indeed you seemed not to have awakened fully at all. My presence appeared to comfort you, so I stayed."

"Yes," she whispered, "It is very comforting."

"Are you alright, Mother?"

She turned in his arms and he saw her face. Wet with tears, it was lit by a glow from within, her lips curved into a soft smile. Up until now, she had avoided really looking at him, feeling too much shame and embarrassment, but now she gazed at him openly. She looked so blissful and he realized that that was what she was feeling. "I don't dream," she whispered, "I've never dreamed."

The shape of her face and jaw and the angle of her cheekbones were the same as his own. Their hair was the same shade of blond. Her skin was the same shade of green that his had been, until the Anomaly had altered him. "Things are different now. You're different now."

"But for how long?" the tears slipped from eyes the same shape and colour as his own, "You're taking such a risk."

His arms tightened around her. "After all you've endured, you should have a chance at a real life. I'm determined to give you that chance, no matter what the risk," he said simply.

Her tears were flowing freely now, "You kept your promise. You told me you wanted to give me back everything that was taken from me and you have. My name, my emotions... my son..."

"Then it was all worth it, Mother. Every bit of it."

"I would have named you. I had such hopes... Everything I'd researched led me to conclude that I would finally feel emotion when I had you.. I would have _ylen_..." _Ylen,_ Querl thought, listening, _Satisfaction, happiness, as after completion of an arduous task_. "But there was nothing, not even disappointment. Had there even been disappointment, I would have kept you, but there was nothing at all. There was no _ylen_, thus no point in giving you the name. I couldn't keep you; I couldn't be sensitive to your needs, the way I was." She swallowed hard and he wiped her cheeks gently.

"Mother..."

She cleared her throat, her voice still an emotion-choked whisper, "Whatever happens, I want you to know, you've given me what I've sought for so long, the whole reason I gave birth to you. Right here, right now, in this moment, I feel happiness. I feel _ylen_." She kissed his cheek, "My son.. my Ylen."

Querl felt as though he'd just fulfilled his whole reason for being. "Your plan worked, it just took me a little longer than anticipated," he smiled. Then he blinked, realizing, "That.. that was my name? Ylen?"

"Yes."

His face shattered and he ducked his head as his own tears overflowed. He wouldn't change his name officially, but to know that his mother _had_ named him, and a name that held such meaning for her... "I love you, Mother," he sobbed, "I always have, and I always will."

Xoanon Dox, Brainiac 4, cupped her son's cheek and smiled like the sun through her tears, "Yes. I feel love, too."


End file.
